No more heroes
Last week, I finished the proofing for Cullen & Bain 6. The Last Drop. The last book too. It’s done and dusted and it’s a massive relief. April will be ten years since the first Cullen, which is still selling moderately well.
Lies, Damned Lies and Sales Statistics
And that’s been a large part of my focus recently. A lot of my fellow authors say “I’d love to try self-publishing [being an indie author], but it seems too complicated”. When I ask them questions, the stuff they feel is over-facing is stuff like covers, editing, formatting, setting up their accounts.
Those are the trivial bits. Like everything in publishing, getting books to sell is the only game in town. Covers, book blurbs, etc, all help, but how do you get people to visit your products pages on Amazon? There are millions of ebooks now, so you have to stand out. And that’s becoming more and more advertising. The two big games in town are Facebook and Amazon itself, which do different things. And on Facebook, it’s incredibly tough to track and make sure your spend is translating to sales. On Amazon, it’s very hard to get sales to convert. Very frustrating, but I think I’ve settled on something that’s working, after a few months of experimentation on stuff that hasn’t worked.
Fun times are back!
So a lot of my time has been on managing a backlist, which isn’t exactly providing a creative spark, so I’ve had some fun last week by doing something completely new and very, very different from my previous books. I’ve done about half of an outline, and it’s already a lot longer than anything I’ve done for a long time, probably the first draft of SNARED, retitled to TOOTH & CLAW when I republished it. I hope it’s not a waste of time and effort, but I think I’ve got something unique and special, in a market that isn’t as saturated as police procedurals are. And it won’t be an Ed James book, so I’ll have to do all the author platform stuff — website, newsletter, twitter/instagram/etc — which feels pretty exhausting, but like I said earlier it’s the easy stuff.
Anyway.
Here be typos
One thing about these missives is that I just start typing until I get to the end, and empty my brain. Unlike absolutely everything else I produce, I don’t re-read this. So there will be typos, so thanks for bearing with me. Otherwise, I’ll just get derailed and never send the thing out.
Finally
I had a lovely overnight stay back home in Carnoustie to celebrate my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Great to spend time with my brother and his family. Also, unearthing loads of family history stuff, which fascinates me. And I’m now more than twice the age they were when they got married!
Cheers,
Ed
Status Report 2021-10-04
Just keep writing!!
You sound a fair bit happier than in previous blogs. Hope that it lasts. Will deffo help your health and well-being. Been struggling to read at moment. Too tired for one thing and Kindle battery on the way out! But keep writing. Will watch out for your new books!